Another one bites the dust —

Inkjet printers, take a bow: Lexmark exiting the business next year

Like Lexmark inkjet printers? Better start stocking up.

Lexmark will be exiting the inkjet printer business, the company announced in a press release Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure will eliminate 1,700 jobs worldwide, and Lexmark will shut down an inkjet supplies manufacturing facility in the Philippines by the end of 2015.

Inkjet revenues fell 66 percent at Lexmark in the first half of this year, and the company had cut 625 jobs earlier to mitigate the loss. Now Lexmark is aiming to save an annualized $95 million by shutting down its inkjet operation.

In moving away from inkjets, Lexmark will increase its focus on "higher value imaging and software solutions." The company is pivoting in roughly the same direction as Kodak, which announced Friday that it intends to sell its physical film and photo paper business to focus on commercial printing and business services.

Lexmark says it will continue to "provide service, support, and aftermarket supplies" for its inkjet customers. That's fair—we couldn't justify the loss of the juicy profits that come off selling ink cartridges at $26 a piece, either. Lexmark states it will investigate the possibility of selling its inkjet operations rather than just shutting them down; barring that, Lexmark expects to eliminate inkjet development worldwide by 2013.

Promoted Comments

The question I have is whether the inkjet market is shrinking, or whether they are simply losing market share to the competition. Personally I use laser at home for printing the random document and if I need photo prints I just let Target, Walgreens, etc. print them for me.

1533 posts | registered May 17, 2000

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

Glad Lexmark's pulling out. I've had an inkjet printer by them and never seen such a worthless piece of supposed "plastic" in my life. Alright, I am biased. But whatever, they're out of the business of inkjet printers now..

I like inkjets. I have a carton of 105g inkjet paper that I use to turn in papers and such. Means I don't have to deal with reformating stuff at uni, and the paper seems more classy than the 80g stuff they use in the laser printer.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that a lot of people will lose their jobs. On the other hand, Lexmark always seemed to me to be the worst of the consumer inkjet brands. Not that that says much.

jackstrop wrote:

Now if we could only get the rest of the industry to drop inkjets...

You mean "drop shitty consumer inkjets". Inkjet as a technology works better than any other commonly available printing type for photo printing. Stuff like the Epson Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro series work very well for their intended use of photo printing, but they also aren't anywhere near the cheap consumer inkjet price class.

For general home use, laser is getting there (sub $200 now for low end color laser), but it will probably never be as cheap as inkjet just because of the number of moving parts.

Small home office guy here. I needed a new printer so I good look at my printing needs, space available, and so forth. Inkjet won out by a large margin.

I ended up getting an Epson Workforce 840 injket - wifi, duplex, auto-feed scanner, all in a small footprint and on sale for $180. A similar equipped laser cost $500+ and was massive. Cost per print is largely irrelevant - I don't do a lot of printing. Mostly print/sign/scan documents. Laser was not worth the up-front cost.

Thank god they are gone. Bar none some of the worst inkjets on the market. That said, I simply am not fond of inkjets, I can buy a cheap laser for the price of two inkjet cartridges, and the starter toner will last about 10x as long as those cartridges. Plus the print quality(for text) is noticibly higher.

I like inkjets. I have a carton of 105g inkjet paper that I use to turn in papers and such. Means I don't have to deal with reformating stuff at uni, and the paper seems more classy than the 80g stuff they use in the laser printer.

There's lots of great, bright heavyweight paper that works fine with laser printers. I really like the HP Premium Choice paper.

I have a laser color printer. It cost no more than the ink-jet printers on the market, and it provides superior results. Given the cost differentials between toner, drums, and the like versus ink carts. It's cheaper to operate as well.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that a lot of people will lose their jobs. On the other hand, Lexmark always seemed to me to be the worst of the consumer inkjet brands. Not that that says much.

jackstrop wrote:

Now if we could only get the rest of the industry to drop inkjets...

You mean "drop shitty consumer inkjets". Inkjet as a technology works better than any other commonly available printing type for photo printing. Stuff like the Epson Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro series work very well for their intended use of photo printing, but they also aren't anywhere near the cheap consumer inkjet price class.

For general home use, laser is getting there (sub $200 now for low end color laser), but it will probably never be as cheap as inkjet just because of the number of moving parts.

We retired a Stylus Pro where I work, basically I was given the printer, all remaining ink and paper and told to go crazy. I made several posters on the roll paper until I ran out of supplies. These high end inkjets are amazing and worth every expensive penny they cost.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that a lot of people will lose their jobs. On the other hand, Lexmark always seemed to me to be the worst of the consumer inkjet brands. Not that that says much.

jackstrop wrote:

Now if we could only get the rest of the industry to drop inkjets...

You mean "drop shitty consumer inkjets". Inkjet as a technology works better than any other commonly available printing type for photo printing. Stuff like the Epson Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro series work very well for their intended use of photo printing, but they also aren't anywhere near the cheap consumer inkjet price class.

For general home use, laser is getting there (sub $200 now for low end color laser), but it will probably never be as cheap as inkjet just because of the number of moving parts.

We retired a Stylus Pro where I work, basically I was given the printer, all remaining ink and paper and told to go crazy. I made several posters on the roll paper until I ran out of supplies. These high end inkjets are amazing and worth every expensive penny they cost.

As an aside I want to use this opportunity to rant that printers remain the worst computer hardware devices that exist. And I'm not even criticizing them for jamming - that's a difficult mechanical problem to solve - but it's the slow, buggy and amazingly stupid drivers that are the problem. It's 2012 and I expect to be able to cancel a print job immediately either from the computer or by pressing the red button. After doing this I expect the printer to stop printing immediately. It's not that hard.

Further I have never, in my lifetime, wanted the printer to print an 11x17 or larger print across 4 or more 8x11's. I have also never wanted an 8x11 to print on 6 mailing envelopes. I'm sure the guy that thought of this feature in 1982 thought he was pretty smart, and it's a fine idea but should have been nixed in practice long ago.

Anyway, my fantasy is that Apple buys the Lexmark leftovers and brings printer software into the modern era.

My old Deskjet 3600 would probably beat that.. The damned thing did its best to destroy me during finals week when without exception it tried to munch/choke on my essays and other assignments...

The crazy thing is that if I tried to print out something else (ie - the full manual to Homeworld) - it'll print the whole thing in a single go with great quality and without a hitch,but a 5 page critique on EU monetary policy = insta paperjam with a side order of cartridge failure (it'd either spray ink like there's no tomorrow or dry up despite being 3/4 full)

The question I have is whether the inkjet market is shrinking, or whether they are simply losing market share to the competition. Personally I use laser at home for printing the random document and if I need photo prints I just let Target, Walgreens, etc. print them for me.

The amount of ink cartridges we sell at work has been steadily declining over the last 10 years and it has dumped in the last 2.

That Lexmark gives in isn't surprising since they can't have been profitable aiming for the "cheapest" printer slot at the supermarkets. One customer commented that he had 4 lexmark "all in one"'s in his shed 'cause it was cheaper buying a new one instead of new cartridges.

In my opinion the industry is killing itself with the "Sell the base unit cheap and recover it with #¤% expensive ink" idea that they have.

My old Deskjet 3600 would probably beat that.. The damned thing did its best to destroy me during finals week when without exception it tried to munch/choke on my essays and other assignments...

The crazy thing is that if I tried to print out something else (ie - the full manual to Homeworld) - it'll print the whole thing in a single go with great quality and without a hitch,but a 5 page critique on EU monetary policy = insta paperjam with a side order of cartridge failure (it'd either spray ink like there's no tomorrow or dry up despite being 3/4 full)

You, too, then, remember the pain of listening to the endless cacophony of "I'm getting ready to print" noises that issued from these infernal thrice-damned beasts only to find out that because the paper was off in the feed tray by a unit of measurement so small it was heretofore unknown to science, the entire page, as well as, for some reason, subsequent pages would print so crookedly (if they did print) that it would take a gambling Irishman on St. Paddy's Day to make any sense of them.

My old Deskjet 3600 would probably beat that.. The damned thing did its best to destroy me during finals week when without exception it tried to munch/choke on my essays and other assignments...

The crazy thing is that if I tried to print out something else (ie - the full manual to Homeworld) - it'll print the whole thing in a single go with great quality and without a hitch,but a 5 page critique on EU monetary policy = insta paperjam with a side order of cartridge failure (it'd either spray ink like there's no tomorrow or dry up despite being 3/4 full)

You, too, then, remember the pain of listening to the endless cacophony of "I'm getting ready to print" noises that issued from these infernal thrice-damned beasts only to find out that because the paper was off in the feed tray by a unit of measurement so small it was heretofore unknown to science, the entire page, as well as, for some reason, subsequent pages would print so crookedly (if they did print) that it would take a gambling Irishman on St. Paddy's Day to make any sense of them.

Yeah,I remember those not so fondly,but my favourite is by far when the cartridge head ?carrier? would start slamming left and right for some insane reason... Hell,the only redeeming quality of the 3600 was that I bought 250ml bottles of ink dirt cheap online (plus the trick to reset the ink meter using tape), because I was fed up with me buying a yach singlehandedly to HP's CEO XD

Personally I use laser at home for printing the random document and if I need photo prints I just let Target, Walgreens, etc. print them for me.

Same setup here. I'm still using the same maxed out LaserJet 2200 DTN that I Frankensteined about 7 years ago. I even have all the parts (minus the laser assembly and main drive gearing) necessary to keep it going for a LONG time.

Plus it's nice to not have to worry about jammed print heads if I haven't used it in the past few months.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that a lot of people will lose their jobs. On the other hand, Lexmark always seemed to me to be the worst of the consumer inkjet brands. Not that that says much.

jackstrop wrote:

Now if we could only get the rest of the industry to drop inkjets...

You mean "drop shitty consumer inkjets". Inkjet as a technology works better than any other commonly available printing type for photo printing. Stuff like the Epson Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro series work very well for their intended use of photo printing, but they also aren't anywhere near the cheap consumer inkjet price class.

For general home use, laser is getting there (sub $200 now for low end color laser), but it will probably never be as cheap as inkjet just because of the number of moving parts.

Glad someone pointed this out. There's a wide variety of printers and applications that work very nicely with inkjets (and some that require inkjets)

Lexmark can go to hell. Between their non-refillable cartridges, forced-expiration cartridges, and having to dispose of a perfectly functioning all-in-one printer/scanner because there was no Win7 driver, their ethics and the company itself can go to hell.

The main issue i have with inkjet is that the ink can dry up during infrequent use.

Crazy thing is that Lexmark may have had the best Linux support out there in recent years.

I'm surprised you're not more irked by the price for the consumables... that or how manufacturers literally time-bombed cartridges to stop working even if they're neither empty nor dried up :|

whisk3rs wrote:

Lexmark can go to hell. Between their non-refillable cartridges, forced-expiration cartridges, and having to dispose of a perfectly functioning all-in-one printer/scanner because there was no Win7 driver, their ethics and the company itself can go to hell.

Actually they could be refilled and reset(at least the two I owned) .. The problem is that the whole procedure is way harder than it has to be.

Actually - a funny story about the high prices of cartridges - I've noticed that it's literally cheaper to buy a new printer in the shop with its demo(apparently not exactly full-size) cartridges than to buy even a single replacement black cartridge (for the HP at least,this might differ with others).. And it's not like the cartridges last any less than the full ones XD

I do agree with most posters, of the 4 main brands in inkjet, Lexmark by far had the lowest grade models, so not totlaly surprised they're headed out.

As for the inkjets need to go away comments, I used to believe that too. Then, when my last HP died, I seriously looked into a color laser to replace it. I do need MFP functionality, but I actually considdered a network scanner in place as an option. (note: don;t waste your time, if you need MFP, you need MFP, there's really no other option that's cheaper).

I looked at about a dozen lasers and boiled it down to 4 I liked, then price shopped those lower. I looked closely at price per page, that was the main point afterall, my wife prints a metric tone (3rd grade school teacher in a poor district, they only give her 2000 pages a year after that she has toprint at home on her dime, but yet, minimum possible given all the required-by-law handouts, we're in for about 6,000 pages a year, and that doesn't include routine handouts, permission slips, notes home, that's just what they HAVE to hand out per the lesson materials, etc). HP was killing us on ink. I took into account TCO (some more expensive models have cheaoper refils or more pages per cartrigde), figuring 4 years life. Duplexing was a requirement as well (cuts down on paper costs).

Finally, i went to some retail shops to look at them, sample output, and make a final choice. On the way out of a bestbuy looking at one, I passed this massive black HP printer. Wasn't even considdering it, but it looked sharp with a big color screen, and oversized scanner feeder, so I opened it up and looked inside too. Then I saw this MASSIVE ink tank. I checked the package and it claimes more than 2300 pages per cartridge (old ones were lucky to get 700 on the XL tanks), and they were not badly priced. The notice indicated it was "50% lower cost to operate than laser). I called bullshit...

Ran some numebrs. Turns out, they're right. Based on common color laser cartridge prices (and I'm counting refils/off brand, not name brand originals), I can get 50% more pages for the same cost out of this than a laser. Looking forther, this printer has EVERYTHING. Wireles, wired, fax, web connected, remote print, airprint, LEGA size copies, not just duplexed print, duplex scan, touchscreen, onboard editing, and more. I checked online (knowing bestbuy was not the cheapest), and found this for $199! Also found cartridges on sale, added the warranty, and for less than $300 I had a new printer with spares.

Damned thing is NICE. Fast (35ppm black draft, 16ppm normal color), good color output, networked easy, limited bloatware, unexpetedly quiet, scans from the printer (no need to sit at the PC to scan like older models), and then I found out I can even add a second 250 sheet tray (so I did for $42 plus shipping). HP 8600 Plus Officejet. If you print in high volume for general printing, and want good photo output, I HIGHLY reccomend this machine over any form of color laser. The STARTER cartridge is still going, more than 900 pages in.... not a single jam either, even duplexing.

I'll say it. I purchased their higher-end Pro5500 not quite half a year ago. It's built like a tank; has really excellent smoothness of color; the ink wouldn't run even after a couple of weeks unprotected with about 2-3" rainfall during that time, hasn't jammed once; includes a duplex scanner on its document feeder; can print PDFs direct from SD cards; detects and warns you *before* you run out of paper or fill the output tray. Even the starter ink cartridges lasted about 500pp. At least a couple notches above any competing printer I could find.

The crazy thing is that if I tried to print out something else (ie - the full manual to Homeworld) - it'll print the whole thing in a single go with great quality and without a hitch,but a 5 page critique on EU monetary policy = insta paperjam with a side order of cartridge failure (it'd either spray ink like there's no tomorrow or dry up despite being 3/4 full)

Ahhh, there's your problem. The printer just keeled over out of boredom.

Also, good riddance to anyone that tried to use DCMA to protect INK CARTRIDGES.

Who the hell ever used a Lexmark inkjet anyway? I have a couple of their lasers and they are solid.As for inkjets being rubbish generally, well yes, cheap ones are. I have a Canon IP6700D which is brilliant at precise color reproduction on all kinds of paper. Photo prints are incredible. Of course it was phased out a few years ago to be replaced by something that looks like a toaster with a TV on top so I hope I get a few more years out of it.And I second the story of the "inkjet cheaper to run than laser" story above. We just got an Epson Workforce all-in-one jobby for our other office and damn right - its really fast and really cheap to run. I have done the maths too. As long as the heads do not clog as Epson used to do then, as they say here in the West Country, job's a good 'un.

The last inkjet I bought years ago was a canon of some variety. It cost me $100 on clearance, and made nice photos. I printed maybe 2 photos on it.

Last year I bought a Brother all-in-one small office color laser printer for just under $500 (Probably could have gotten it cheaper if I was more patient. Such is life in the technological fast lane.) I print up to 5 pages a week now on that one, but that can be followed by months of dust gathering. I predict the toner will run out in 4 years or so. But if I don't use it for 4 years and decide to print something, I won't be worried about the toner not working and needing to rush out and buy cartridges at a price that makes gasoline look cheap.

Ink jets haven't been cheaper than lasers for quite a while, but the ROI for the casual home user was just too far out to make sense.

Am I the only one that misses dry ink printers? My old Alps printer was a great workhorse. I stockpiled cartridges but eventually they ran out. "Yeah, I can print that in metallic cyan on black paper."